Jared Harris Boards Poltergeist

It’s a busy week for former “Mad Men” star Jared Harris. Following word yesterday that he’s signed on for Guy Ritchie’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Deadline is reporting that Harris is set to play a leading role in MGM and Fox 2000’s upcoming remake of Poltergeist opposite Rosemarie DeWitt and Sam Rockwell.

Gil Kenan (Monster House) is set to direct from a screenplay by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Lindsay-Abaire (whose recent credits includes Oz The Great and Powerful). The film is being produced by Sam Raimi (Evil Dead) and Rob Tapert (The Posession) via Ghost House Pictures, along with Roy Lee (The Strangers). Nathan Kahane (The Grudge) will serve as executive producer.

Poltergeist will be marketed and distributed worldwide by Twentieth Century Fox, with select international territories as well as international television distribution being handled by MGM. Fox will also handle home entertainment and domestic television.

In a revisionist take on the classic horror film, a family, the Bowens, are struggling to make ends meet and relocate to an outdated suburban home whereupon they are confronted by an angry spirit who kidnaps their youngest daughter and challenges them to band together to rescue her from the clutches of evil.

Harris, whose big screen work includes the recent Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and Mortal Instruments: City of Bone will play Carrigan, the host of a cable program called “Haunted House Cleaners.”

Update:Variety is now reporting that Kyle Catlett has joined the cast as well. Catlett, who will play the son of DeWitt and Rockwell’s Bowen family, is best known for playing Joey Matthews on FOX’s “The Following”. He’s also playing the title role in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s upcoming The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet.